Methods for establishing an instant message conference

ABSTRACT

A method for displaying content of a time-sensitive e-mail message to a recipient, wherein the content displayed is based on when the recipient opens the time-sensitive e-mail message. A sender of the time-sensitive e-mail message establishes content and a rule set for delivering the e-mail message. The rule set contains a predefined time limit for allowing the recipient of the time-sensitive e-mail message to open it. If the recipient opens the time-sensitive e-mail message within the predefined time limit, the content within the e-mail is delivered to the recipient. If, however, the recipient fails to open the time-sensitive e-mail message within the predefined time limit, then the time-sensitive e-mail message is either deleted from the recipient&#39;s mailbox or an alternative message is displayed.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

Reference is made to co-pending patent application Ser. No. 10/165,831,filed on even-date herewith, with inventor Dale W. Malik, entitled“Systems and Methods for Delivering Time-Sensitive Messages Over aDistributed Network.”

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to transmitting e-mail messagesover a distributed network, and more particularly to electronicconferencing over a distributed network.

BACKGROUND

The Internet is a worldwide network of distributed computers that havethe ability to communicate with each other. Because of the ease tocommunicate with another person halfway around the world, the Internethas gained widespread recognition as a viable communications network,especially for businesses. The easiest and most popular method ofcommunicating with another individual over the Internet is through theuse of electronic mail, or “e-mail.” To generate an e-mail message, thesender typically selects the recipient's e-mail address from a drop downlist of available users. The sender then inputs a message he/she wishesto send to the recipient and forwards it onto an electronic messageserver at the sender's Internet Service Provider (“ISP”). The ISP thenextracts the recipient's address from the e-mail message and forwards itonto the message server of the recipient's ISP, where it is stored untilthe recipient logs onto his or her Internet appliance and retrieves thee-mail message.

However, as unread e-mail messages sit on the recipient's messageserver, the e-mail messages age and their content may become outdated orobsolete by the time the recipient opens his or her e-mail messages. Forexample, an e-mail message inviting a person to a conference at 11:00a.m. becomes obsolete if the recipient fails to read the e-mail messageby 11:01 a.m. In this circumstance, it would be helpful to alter thecontent of the original message if the recipient does not open thee-mail message by a specified date and time. Allowing the dated materialto remain unopened in the recipient's e-mail system not only wastesvaluable resources, but also decreases the productivity of the recipientby cluttering his or her e-mail box with useless and obsolete messages.The recipient has no way of knowing which messages are obsolete andwhich message are relevant until they open each message.

In other instances, electronic coupons have become a popular method forretailers to advertise their products and increase sales. Typically,retailers send electronic coupons that have a sliding discount rate orbecome useless past the date of promotion. That is, the longer therecipient waits to open and to use the electronic coupon, the less thediscount rate or potential for usage. For example, as an incentive togenerate business, a retailer may send out an electronic coupon, whichoffers a discount rate 50% off the retail price of an item if the couponis opened and used within one week of when it was sent. Once the weekhas passed, the discount rate may drop to 10%. Normally, the retailerwould have to send out a second electronic coupon to those patrons thatdid not redeem the first electronic coupon within the first week.Unfortunately, sending multiple electronic coupons with varying discountrates is both costly and time consuming for the retailer and alsoconsumes valuable computing resources. Additionally, sending multipleelectronic coupons can irritate the customer. It would therefore, bemore effective and less obtrusive to send out a single electronicmessage that contains both levels of the promotion and delivers only thepromotion that is relevant at the time the message is read.

Typical methods of regulating e-mail messages are based on filteringe-mail messages received at the recipient's Internet appliance ormessage server. In these methods, the recipient establishes a rule set,which is stored on his or her message server or e-mail application. Forinstance, the recipient may establish rules to exclude all e-mailmessages from a particular Internet address or all e-mail messageshaving a specific content. As an example, a filter may be set up on themessage server to block all unsolicited messages, or “Spam,” that comefrom a known IP address. Although these methods regulate which e-mailmessages are delivered to a particular user, these filter or blockingmethods are set up by the recipient. These methods do not allow thesender to establish a rule set for determining how a recipient views thecontent based on when the recipient opens his or her e-mail message.

Thus, there is a need in the art for a method to deliver an e-mailmessage to a recipient over a distributed network, wherein the contentof the message is based on how long the message remains unread after itis sent to the recipient's Internet appliance.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed toward systems and methods foraltering the content of an e-mail message based on the time the e-mailmessage has been sitting without being read in the recipient's mailsystem. Generally described, a method according to an embodiment of theinvention is for transmitting an e-mail message to a recipientcontaining time-sensitive content, based on when the recipient opens thee-mail message. More particularly described, a method is for deliveringtime-sensitive e-mail messages to a recipient. First, the sender of ane-mail message establishes a rule set for delivering the time-sensitivee-mail message. Next, the sender creates at least one message, orcontent for the e-mail message. The sender then transmits the e-mailmessage to a message server. Once the message server receives the e-mailmessage, the rule set is typically extracted from the header of thee-mail message. The content of the e-mail message is then placed in amailbox associated with the recipient. The rule set contains apredefined time limit for allowing the recipient of the e-mail messageto retrieve or open the message and any associated linkages contained inthe message. If the recipient opens the e-mail message within thepredefined time limit, the content of the e-mail message is displayed.If, however, the recipient fails to open or retrieve the e-mail messagefrom his or her mailbox, then the e-mail message is either deleted fromthe recipient's mailbox or an alternative message is displayed based onthe rule set supplied by the sender.

A system according to an embodiment of the invention is for facilitatingthe delivery of a time-sensitive e-mail message between a sender and arecipient. The system contains a message server that is capable ofreceiving the time-sensitive e-mail message from the sender, whichcontains at least one message, or content, and a rule set that governsthe delivery of the content to the recipient. The message server alsocontains an e-mail message application program, which extracts the ruleset from the time-sensitive e-mail message. The e-mail messageapplication program retrieves a predefined time limit for allowing therecipient to open the e-mail message and sets a timer to thepredetermined time limit. The message server then stores thetime-sensitive e-mail message in a mailbox associated with therecipient. The e-mail message application program then determineswhether the recipient opened or received the e-mail message within thepredefined time limit. If the recipient opened the e-mail message withinthe predefined time limit the e-mail message application programdisplays the content of the e-mail message in accordance with the ruleset to the recipient.

That the invention improves over the drawbacks of electronic mailsystems and methods and addresses the advantages described above willbecome apparent from the following detailed description of the exemplaryembodiments and the appended drawings and claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and form a part ofthe specification, illustrate preferred embodiments of the presentinvention and, together with the description, disclose the principles ofthe invention. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a system according to an embodiment of thepresent invention for sending time-sensitive e-mail messages between asender and a recipient.

FIGS. 2A and 2B, collectively known as FIG. 2, are logic flow diagramsillustrating a method of transmitting one of several e-mail messagesbased on the time sensitivity of delivering the e-mail message.

FIG. 3 is an illustration of an example of an instant messagingconferencing network architecture using the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a logic flow diagram of a method for using instant messagingfor scheduling a conference between multiple attendees.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a typical Internet Service Provider (ISP)network according to an embodiment of the present invention for sendingtime-sensitive e-mail messages between a sender 105 registered with afirst Internet Service Provider 100 and a recipient 125 registered witha second Internet Service Provider 117. While the invention will bedescribed with reference to two ISPs 100 and 117, it should beunderstood that the systems and methods according to the invention maybe used with just one ISP or with more than two ISPs.

The sender 105 creates a time-sensitive e-mail message using a messageclient 107 on his or her Internet appliance 110 to send to the recipient125. Normally, the Internet appliance 110 will be a personal computer.However, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the Internetappliance 110 may be any device that is capable of sending and receivinge-mail messages, such as a Web-enabled cellular telephone, aBlackberry®, a pager, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a pager, orthe like. Furthermore, for purposes of this application, atime-sensitive e-mail message is defined as any e-mail message thatcontains content that becomes obsolete or which the sender 105 wishes toalter after a predefined amount of time has elapsed.

The sender 105 also establishes a rule set using the message client 107at the time he or she creates the e-mail message. The rule set is usedto determine whether and how the content of time-sensitive e-mailmessage is presented to the recipient 125. As a result, the rule set maycontain instructions to delete the time-sensitive e-mail message if thetime-sensitive e-mail message remains unread after a certain period oftime or to display an alternate e-mail message with alternative contentif the recipient 125 has not opened the first time-sensitive e-mailmessage within a predefined time limit. For example, the sender 105 maywish to know the answer to a particular question to present to a clientat a meeting within an hour. The sender 105 may send an e-mail messageto a colleague back at the office asking for the answer to the question.However, if the sender's colleague does not answer the e-mail message,for whatever reason, before the client meeting, then there is no reasonto keep the e-mail message sent to the colleague. Therefore, the sender105 may embed a rule within the e-mail message to delete the e-mailmessage from the message server if the colleague does not open it withinone hour.

Once the sender 105 has composed the time-sensitive e-mail message andincluded the rule set for delivering the message, the time-sensitivee-mail message is forwarded to a message server 115 with ISP 100. Themessage server 115 then performs the appropriate routing instructions toreach the intended recipient's message server 118. When thetime-sensitive e-mail message is forwarded to the message server 115,the message server 115 determines if the time-sensitive e-mail messageneeds to be forwarded to another message server and, if so, transfersthe time-sensitive message to the message server, such as to messageserver 118.

When the message server 118 receives the e-mail message, it launches ane-mail message application 119 to determine whether the time-sensitivee-mail message contains a time-based header embedded in the subjectfield of the message. Although the time-based header is described asbeing embedded in the subject field of the message, those skilled in theart will appreciate that the time-based header may be embedded in otherportions of the time-sensitive e-mail message as appropriatelyconfigured between the message client 107 that creates it and the e-mailmessage application 119 that interprets it.

The e-mail message application 119 examines the header of thetime-sensitive e-mail message to determine how the message should bemarked for storage and eventual retrieval and deletion. Eachtime-sensitive e-mail message is placed in a folder within therecipient's mailbox and is marked with a date and time stamp. Thetime-sensitive e-mail message remains on the message server 118 untilthe recipient downloads it, or the e-mail message application 119deletes it once the time for the recipient to retrieve thetime-sensitive e-mail messages has expired. The e-mail messageapplication 119 typically examines the time-sensitive e-mail messages ona periodic basis to determine whether any of the time-sensitive e-mailmessages that contain time-sensitive content have been marked for timeexpiration. For example, the e-mail message application 119 may run onan hourly basis seeking to review the folders that have been marked fortime expiration at that moment. The e-mail message application 119 mayoperate more frequently, such as every minute or at other intervals oftime. Any time-sensitive e-mail messages that are marked for deletionare removed at that time. In addition, some of the time-sensitivemessages may be chained to other messages that will succeed them.Information about chained messages is included in the embedded header.An example of the embedded header is shown below.

Subject:\message IDΛStart Date/TimeΛStop Date/TimeΛ# of correlatedmessagesΛsequence of this messageΛSubject to be displayed/

The message ID field is used to identify the message and correlateadditional messages. The “Start Date/Time” field contains the date stampand time stamp of when the message server 118 received thetime-sensitive e-mail message. The “Stop Date/Time” field contains adate stamp and time stamp that corresponds to the date and time to whenthe time-sensitive e-mail message should be removed from the messageserver 118. The “# of correlated messages” field contains a value equalto the number of e-mail messages that are related to the same subject.For instance, if the sender 105 only composed one e-mail message, thisfield would contain the value “1.” However, if two messages were beingsent, the embedded header would include a designation of “2” in the “#of correlated messages” field to indicate that there are 2 relatedmessages. Next, the “sequence of this message” field contains a valuethat corresponds to the order in which the e-mail message should bepresented to the recipient, if more than one correlated message is sent.Finally, the “Subject to be displayed” field contains a text messagethat is presented to the recipient.

As an example, a time-sensitive e-mail may contain an advertisement fora one day sale by retailer. The corresponding embedded header for theadvertisement may look like:

-   -   Subject:\5789Λ5-29-02, 11:00 amΛ5-30-02, 11:00 amΛ1Λ1ΛOne Day        Sale at Macy's, May 30, 2002/

In the above example, the one-day sale promotion will be delivered noearlier than May 29, 2002 at 11:00 a.m. and no later than May 30, 2002at 11:00 a.m. If the e-mail message is sent prior to May 29, 2002, thee-mail message application 119 stores the pending e-mail message in adate and time stamp folder on the message server 118, which correspondsto the Start Date/Time field in the embedded header. Then at 11:00 a.m.on May 29, 2002, the e-mail message application 119 would move thee-mail message to a date and time stamped folder in the recipient'smailbox. Once the recipient 125 logs onto the message server 118, themessage client 122 will download the appropriate e-mail message from therecipient's mailbox, if one still exists.

Normally, most time-sensitive e-mail messages will contain a singlepredefined time limit. However, there is no limit to the number ofpredefined time limits that the sender 105 may include in the rule set.

As mentioned above, in addition to deleting a time-sensitive e-mailmessage, the sender 105 may prefer that an alternative message bedisplayed to the recipient 125 after the expiry of the time period. Inthe example provided above, the sender 105 sent an e-mail advertising aOne Day Sale at Macy's. The sender 105 may alternatively have sent twoe-mails with the following headers:

-   -   Subject:\5789Λ5-29-02, 11:00 amΛ5-30-02, 11:00 amΛ2Λ1ΛOne Day        Sale at Macy's, May 30, 2002/    -   Subject:\5789Λ5-30-02, 11:00 amΛ5-31-02, 11:00 amΛ1Λ2ΛAfter Sale        Clearance at Macy's, May 31, 2002/

As shown in these two exemplary headers, the first e-mail notifies therecipient 125 of a One Day Sale at Macy's on May 30, 2002. If therecipient 125 does not retrieve or open the e-mail by May 30, 2002, at11:00 a.m., then the message server 118 will make the second e-mailavailable to the recipient 125. The message server 118 automaticallydeletes the second e-mail if the recipient 125 does not retrieve or openthe e-mail between 11 a.m. on May 30, 2002, and 11:00 a.m. on May 31,2002. With this example, if the recipient 125 does open or retrieve thefirst e-mail, then the message server 118 will delete the second e-mail.The message server 119 can easily determine that a second e-mail existsbecause the header has “2” in the field for the number of correlatedmessages. To locate the second e-mail, the message server 119 looks foranother e-mail having the same message ID of “5789” and which has “2” inthe “sequence of message” field. As should be apparent, the messageserver 119 would seek a third e-mail having the same message ID of“5789” and which has “3” in the “sequence of message” field if theheaders of the e-mails had “3” in the field for the number of correlatedmessages.

In addition to either deleting the time-sensitive e-mail message ordisplaying an alternative content, the sender 105 may establish a ruleset that instructs the message server 115 to direct the time-sensitivee-mail message to a particular Internet appliance 120 at a particulartime during the day. For example, if the recipient 125 has multipleInternet appliances, such as a PC, a PDA, and a cellular telephoneregistered with the ISP, the sender 105 may establish a rule set thatinstructs the message server 118 to deliver the time-sensitive e-mailmessage to a particular Internet appliance 120 at a particular time. Forinstance, the sender 105 may establish a rule set to first attempt todeliver the time-sensitive e-mail message to the recipient's PC between10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. If the time-sensitive e-mail message is notopened during that time the rules may instruct the message server 115 toattempt to deliver the time-sensitive e-mail message to the recipient'sPDA between 12:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., and if the time-sensitive e-mailmessage is still unopened, then to the recipient's cellular telephonebetween 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Establishing a set of logic rules forthe delivery of time-sensitive e-mail messages allows the sender 105greater flexibility in directing the delivery of time-sensitive e-mailmessages in a manner that increases productivity while reducing theconsumption of computer resources.

The embedded header may be modified to include the IP address of theappropriate Internet appliances along with the date and time in whichthe time-sensitive e-mail message will be available to the particularInternet appliances. An example of such a header is as follows:

-   -   Subject:\message IDΛStart Date/TimeΛStop Date/TimeΛ# of        correlated messagesΛsequence of this messageΛSubject to be        displayedΛNo. of Internet AppliancesΛSequence of Internet        AppliancesΛStart Date/Time for First Internet ApplianceΛStop        Date/Time for First Internet ApplianceΛStart Date/Time for        Second Internet ApplianceΛStop Date/Time for Second Internet        Appliance/ . . .        where the “No. of Internet Appliances” field contains a value        equal to the number of Internet appliances that the sender        wishes to send the time-sensitive e-mail message, the “Sequence        of Internet Appliances” field contains the IP addresses of the        each Internet appliance in the order in which the time-sensitive        e-mail message should be sent, the “Start Date/Time for first        Internet Appliance” and “Stop Date/Time for first Internet        Appliance” fields specify the period of time that the        time-sensitive e-mail message should sent to the first Internet        device, and the “Start Date/Time for Second Internet Appliance”        and the “Stop Date/Time for the Second Internet Appliance” field        specify the period of time that the time-sensitive e-mail        message should sent to the second Internet device. The “message        ID,” “Start Date/Time,” “Stop Date/Time,” “# of correlated        messages,” “sequence of this message,” and “Subject to be        displayed” fields are described above. While this exemplary        header only lists two Internet devices, the headers may include        additional number of Internet devices.

Although the method according to the present invention is described asbeing used within an e-mail message system, the method of the presentinvention may be used in conjunction with any electronic messagingsystems, such as an IM system. The systems may also be used with theUniversal Instant Messaging system fully described in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No.10/135,929, entitled “Instant Messaging Architectureand System for Interoperability and Presence Management,” filed Apr. 29,2002, and hereby incorporated by reference.

FIGS. 2A and 2B collectively known as FIG. 2, show a logic flow diagramillustrating a routine 200 for establishing a rule set in atime-sensitive e-mail message. Routine 200 begins at 205 in which thesender 105 establishes a rule set for the delivery of the time-sensitivee-mail message to a recipient 125. The rule set is established at thetime the e-mail message is created. Typically, the rule set is embeddedinto the header of the e-mail message. However, the rule set may beembedded anywhere within the e-mail message, such as at the beginning ofthe actual text message or at the end of the text message. To facilitatethe creation of the rules, the message client 107 may display theavailable rules in a drop-down menu that the sender 105 may graphicallyselect using the standard point-and-click method. Although a drop-downmenu allows the sender 105 to easily establish the rule set for thedelivery of the e-mail message, other methods, such as a pop-up box of acommand line, may be used to create the applicable rule set in thetime-sensitive e-mail message. The rule set may include a predefinedtime limit to allow the recipient 125 to open the time-sensitive e-mailmessage, instructions to delete the time-sensitive e-mail message,instructions to display an alternative content, list of Internetappliances, sequencing of messages, and the like.

Once the sender 105 has established a rule set for delivering thetime-sensitive e-mail message to the recipient 125, the sender 105 thencreates the content for the time-sensitive e-mail message. Although, theexemplary embodiment has described the alternative content beingpresented if a single predefined time limit has passed, those skilled inthe art will appreciate that any number of alternative messages may beplaced within the time-sensitive e-mail message.

At 210, the time-sensitive e-mail message, along with the embedded rulesare transmitted to the message server 115 at the sender's ISP 100. Ifthe recipient 125 is registered with the ISP 100, then the messageserver 115 maintains the e-mail message. On the other hand, if therecipient 125 has another ISP, such as ISP 117, then the message server115 forwards the time-sensitive e-mail message to the message server 116of the ISP 117.

At 215, the e-mail message application 119 at the ISP 117 examines theembedded header and extracts the start time and date information, aswell as other relevant information in the header. At 220, the e-mailmessage application 119 determines whether the e-mail message was sentprior to the date and time contained in the embedded header. The e-mailmessage application 119 compares the value stored in the Start Date/Timefield in the embedded header with the value returned by an internalcalendar/clock associated with the message server 118. If the valuestored in the Start Date/Time field is greater than the value returnedby the internal calendar/clock, then the “YES” branch is followed to225.

At 225, the time-sensitive e-mail message is temporarily stored in adate/time stamped folder on the message server 118. The time-sensitivee-mail message remains in the date/time stamped folder until theinternal calendar/clock matches the date/time stamp of the folder. Oncethe date/time of the internal calendar/clock matches the date/time stampof the folder holding the time-sensitive e-mail message, the e-mailmessage application 119 moves the time-sensitive e-mail message toanother date/time stamped folder in the recipient's mailbox at 230. Thee-mail message application 119 continually monitors the date/time stampfolders on the message server 118 for messages that need to be moved tothe recipient's mailbox. The time-sensitive-e-mail message remains inthe date/time stamped folder until the recipient 125 downloads it fromthe mailbox to the message client 122.

At 235, the determination is made whether the recipient downloaded thetime-sensitive e-mail message before value of the time/date stamp of thefolder expired. If the recipient downloaded the message within theappropriate time limits, the “YES” branch is followed to 240, in whichthe first message of the time-sensitive e-mail message is displayed tothe recipient.

However, if the time-sensitive e-mail message was not downloaded by thedate specified by the date/time stamp of the folder in the recipient'smailbox, the “NO” branch is followed to 245, in which a determination ismade whether there is more than one message associated with thetime-sensitive e-mail message. The e-mail message application 119 checksthe “#of correlated messages” field in the header of the e-mail todetermine if the value is greater than 1. If the determination is madeby the e-mail message application 119 at 245 that there was only onemessage sent in the time-sensitive e-mail message, then the “NO” branchis followed to 255 where e-mail message application 119 deletes themessage from the recipient's mailbox. If the value in the “#ofcorrelated messages” field is greater than 1, then there is at least onealternative message and the “YES” branch is followed back to 220. At220, the e-mail message application 119 determines whether this nexte-mail message was sent prior to the date and time contained in theembedded header.

Returning to step 235, if the determination is made by the e-mailmessage application 119 that the time-sensitive e-mail message wasopened before the time specified in the “Stop Date/Time” field in theheader, then the “YES” branch is followed to 240, in which the e-mailmessage application 119 provides the first e-mail message to therecipient 125 and discards any additional messages that may have beensent with the time-sensitive e-mail message.

Electronic Conferencing

An application of time-sensitive messaging is establishing an electronicconference in conjunction with instant messaging (IM). FIG. 3 is anillustration of a block diagram illustrating how an electronicconference call may be established using a system according to anembodiment of the present invention. The sender 105 initiates anelectronic conference call by generating a conference request, which ispreferably an IM conference request embedded in an e-mail message 310.The e-mail message 310 includes an attachment that contains the IMconference information, such as the date and time of the conference, andthe e-mail addresses of each person the user wishes to attend the IMconference call. An example of a typical IM conference request may looksimilar to:

<“text string”>/client1@ISP1.com; client2@ISP2.com; client3@ISP3.comwhere text string is the conference information, such as “Conferencecall on Monday, July 9, 2001 at 9:00 am” and “client1@ISP1.com,”“clien2@ISP2.com,” and “client3@ISP3.com” are the e-mail addresses ofeach of the conference attendees.

The IM conference request is then sent in the e-mail message 310 to themessage server 115. The message server 115 then distributes the e-mailmessage 310 with the IM conference request to each attendee 320, 325,and 330. Although only three attendees are shown in the illustration,those skilled in the art will appreciate that there is no limit to thenumber of possible attendees that may join in the IM conference call.

When each conference attendee 320, 325, and 330 opens the e-mail message310, a link is displayed in the message client 122, that enables eachattendee to send back a positive reply signal indicating that particularattendee will attend the IM conference call or a negative reply signalindicating that they will not be able to attend the IM conference call.If an attendee generated a positive reply signal, a timer may be setwithin that attendee's message client 122 to alert the attendee at theappropriate time to join the IM conference call. Additionally, the timermay be set to automatically launch the IM applet within the messageclient 122 at the appropriate time so that the attendees 320, 325, and330 can join the IM conference. Once the attendees 320, 325, and 330have sent their reply message back to the message server 115, themessage server 115 reserves the connections between the sender 105 andeach attendee who has sent back a positive reply signal.

The e-mail message 310 also contains a rule set in the event that anyone of the attendees does not respond to the IM conference requestwithin the predefined time limit. If an attendee does not reply, then itis assumed that he or she will not be attending the IM conference call.To conserve resources on the message server 115, the rule set may beconfigured to delete the e-mail message 310 from the non-attendingrecipient's mailbox. Alternatively, the rule set may allow for analternative message to be delivered to the non-attending recipient'smailbox, such as “Sorry you missed the meeting” or provide instructionswhere they may retrieve the minutes of the meeting.

Additionally, the time-sensitive messaging allows the sender 105 to sendseparate messages to each potential attendee 320, 325, and 330 using asingle e-mail 310, thereby reducing the need for the sender 105 tocreate multiple e-mail messages with the same IM conference information.To forward individualized messages to the individual attendees 320, 325,and 330, the sender 105 first establishes a rule set for delivering thee-mail message 310 to the three separate attendees 320, 325, and 330.The sender 105 then creates the separate messages to be delivered toeach attendee 320, 325, and 330. After the e-mail message has beendelivered to the message server 115, the message server 115 extracts therules from the header of the e-mail 310 and distributes theindividualized messages in accordance with the rules.

FIG. 4 is a logic flow diagram illustrating a routine 400 forestablishing an IM conference call. Routine 400 begins at 405, in whichthe sender 105 generates a conference request. The conference requesttypically includes the e-mail address of each recipient of an instantmessage who is invited to the IM conference call and the IM conferenceinformation.

At 410 the sender 105 transmits the IM conference request to the messageserver 115 for distribution to each attendee. At 415, the message server115 parses the IM conference request and retrieves the conferenceinformation and each e-mail address of each attendee. The message server115 then stores the appropriate e-mail 310 containing the IM conferenceinformation retrieved from the conference request in each attendee'smailbox at the message server 115. When the attendees 320, 325, and 330log onto the system, the message server 115 downloads the e-mail message310 to a message client (not shown) on each attendees Internet appliance(e.g. personal computer, PDA, cellular telephone, etc.).

At 420, each attendee 320, 325, and 330 opens the e-mail message ontheir Internet appliance and receives the conference details, such asthe date and the time of the instant messaging conference. Upon openingthe e-mail message 310, a series of buttons may be displayed within eachrecipient's Internet browser display that allow the recipient to signalwhether they will be able to attend the IM conference call at thescheduled time and date. For example, the message client 122 may show a“YES” button and a “NO” button that the recipient may select to generatethe reply signal and these replies may activate an Internet browser onthe Internet appliance 120. At 425, each recipient generates a replymessage back to the sender 105.

At 425, the message server 115 determines whether each attendee hasgenerated a positive or negative reply signal. If an attendee hasgenerated a positive reply signal, indicating that he or she will attendthe IM Conference, the “YES” branch is followed to 430. At 430, a timeris automatically set to the date and time of the IM conference call toautomatically launch the recipient's Internet browser's IM applet andconnect with the IM Server 315. If on the other hand, the determinationwas made at 430 that the recipient did not generate a positive replysignal, then no connection will be made between the attendee who did notreply and the IM server 315. If however, the attendee does not send areply e-mail message within predefined time limit, then the “NO” branchis followed to 435, in which a second, or alternative message is sent tothe attendee. For example, if the attendee does not reply within thepredefined time limit, the, an alternative message

The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments of the inventionhas been presented only for the purpose of illustration and descriptionand is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to theprecise forms disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possiblein light of the above teaching.

The embodiments were chosen and described in order to explain theprinciples of the invention and their practical application so as toenable others skilled in the art to utilize the invention and variousembodiments and with various modifications as are suited to theparticular use contemplated.

1. A method for establishing an instant message (IM) conference betweena sender and at least one attendee, comprising: receiving atime-sensitive e-mail message, the time-sensitive e-mail messagecomprising: an IM conference request; an e-mail address associated witheach attendee; and a rule set specifying a predefined time limitgoverning the delivery of the e-mail message; receiving and extractingthe rule set and the e-mail address for each attendee; determining thepredefined time limit; forwarding the time-sensitive e-mail message to amailbox for each attendee in accordance with the rule set; determiningwhether the at least one attendee opened the time sensitive e-mailmessage within the predefined time limit; if the attendee opened thetime-sensitive e-mail message within the predefined time limit,providing the IM conference request to the attendee; and if the attendeedid not open the time-sensitive e-mail message within the predefinedtime limit, not providing the IM conference request to the attendee. 2.The method of claim 1, further comprising: if the attendee opened thetime-sensitive e-mail message within the predefined time limitautomatically launching an IM conference.
 3. The method of claim 1,further comprising receiving a reply message from each attendee.
 4. Themethod of claim 1, wherein receiving and extracting the rule set and thee-mail address for each attendee is performed at a message server foreach attendee.
 5. The method of claim 1, receiving and extracting therule set and the e-mail address for each attendee is performed on anInternet appliance for each attendee.
 6. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising if the attendee did not open the time-sensitive e-mailmessage within the predefined time limit, delivering an alternatemessage to the attendee.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the alternatemessage provides instructions on retrieving minutes from the conference.